


And It Bakes In The Bad Sun

by Shiqe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fancy Writing hon hon, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mild Blood, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27740266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiqe/pseuds/Shiqe
Summary: Basically the scene where Dave goes back to his old apartment, but sort of rewritten.So I wrote this literally for an assignment in school for a teacher who is none the wiser to the existence of Homestuck, and I was actually pretty proud of it so I thought why not post it.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	And It Bakes In The Bad Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from O My Heart by Mother Mother. Wonderful band whom everyone should listen to.

A small part of him wishes it was more impactful. The overwhelming surge of memory that should have flooded through his mind was ineffably snuffed, dimmed to the single, acute thought that the room was even messier than he’d remembered leaving it. Maybe if he stretched to the limits of what he thought was meant to happen, he could have realized the significant weight that three good years away can carry to oppose the thirteen long bad years he spent in this room that came before it.

The nostalgia was painfully bittersweet. A part of him was indescribably relieved to be back, but another part of him couldn’t relax. His underwhelming uneasiness could be due to the noise— rather, the lack thereof. It’s quiet. So quiet he feels as if he might go mad. He could scream and yell and run around like a beheaded cockroach, waiting to die of thirst, but all sound would be lost to the void this space has created. It’s deafening. While this was the only room in the small apartment that didn’t absolutely reek of _his_ presence, the unsettled fear still lingered. Even in his own room, behind the safety of the wood of his door and the plaster of his walls, he remembered never being relaxed.

He shook off the conflicting feelings and looked around, still slightly bewildered that while it has been three long years since he’s been here, everything is just how he left it. He takes his first steps past the threshold of the doorway, and the first thing he’s hit with is the smell. Rotting food. Expired beverages. Not strong enough to invade his mind, but it keeps in the background. As he slowly walks in, immediately he’s tripping on cords that snake along his floor in the most disorganized fashion possible. Despite the sudden alarm it brings him in the moment, a quick smirk tugs at his lips once he restabilizes. It’s gone as soon as it came though. Some habits die hard.

His line of sight follows along the cords until it falls on where they all meet: the corner of his room with his desk and PC, one of the few things he owned that cost more than three hundred dollars. A dozen or so drawings are taped to the wall above his monitor, every single one of them shitty, every single one of them he remembered drawing. He goes over and sits in his chair at the desk, just like he used to, and immediately taken aback for just a moment by how much smaller the seat felt. He doesn’t bother trying to turn on the computer, it’s unreasonable to think this place still has power. Regardless, it’s easy to get lost in the nostalgia. A thought comes to him, and he snaps his fingers as it does. His desk doesn’t have drawers— in fact, it can hardly be called a desk, being just a plane of sturdy wood on half a dozen stacked cinder blocks— so he runs his hand along the underside of the wood, checking to see if it’s still there. There’s no reason it wouldn’t be, but maybe he just wants the security of knowing it’s right where he left it. His fingers brush along lightly until they meet something cold and sharp. He draws his hand away. It’s still there. Feeling slightly safer and for no discernible reason, he leans back in the chair and looks around the area. Video games, servers, mini amps, all hand-me-downs from _him_.

He’s suddenly in a hurry to leave the seat and travel back to the center of his room, where he now faces his turntables. Dust is gathered on the surface. His records, now worn and most likely unusable, are in the same cramped order they’ve always been in. Again, once precious to him, what he used to spend at least half of his days messing with and creating beats. He used to show them all to _him_. He used to be proud of it. It wells him with something he can’t describe.

He’s backing away from it until his feet trip on a cord again and he falls backward with a loud expletive. He lands on something firm, yet slightly bouncy, and he immediately recognizes it as his old bed. Again, too small for him now (how tiny _was_ his thirteen year old self?), but familiar nonetheless. Just like everything else in his room, it’s a pretty shitty set-up — literally just two mattresses stacked on top of each other — but it was practical, so he never found a reason to complain. He unconsciously runs his hands along the thin sheets, a small motion which does wonders to his heart rate. His fingertips hit something on the bed, and he turns around to find his old camera. Picking it up, he finds it broken, and therefore useless. After a quick recall of memories he’s had with it, he tosses it back on the bed and turns back around with a deep sigh. Everything in this room is broken in some way, he admits.

From his solemn spot on the bed, his eye easily catches the shelf across the room, and his mind is discarded of downtrodden whispers. He gets up and heads over to it. What a stupid blast from the past, he thinks as he looks at his old collection of weird dead things. Fossils, bones, ambers, strange shit galore. Why does his childhood room have to be such a predictable museum of embarrassment? Despite the thoughts, the ones he picked up he stares at with a certain fondness. He couldn’t remember if he was sincere with the collection, or if it was just another ironic habit he picked up from _him_. He could have been a paleontologist with all this stuff if he looked at it with even a semblance of seriousness. He sets the bones right back where he found them and ends that train of thought right there.

There’s not much else to go over. There’s childish posters of comics he probably liked hanging above his bed, there’s the string that runs from ceiling corner to corner with photographs pinned to them to further establish the part of his room that contributes as a makeshift darkroom, there’re the katanas mounted on the wall above his turntables…

He doesn’t think twice. There’s abrasive force in the way he rushes over to them, takes them from the stand, and shoves them in his closet as far back as they’ll go, out of sight. He slams the closet door shut, reveling in the tingling that they left on his hands just from touching them. They felt too familiar in his grip. Things crunch as they’re shoved in, most likely some stale, hidden food he had stashed away (likely the source of the smell from earlier), but he couldn’t care less. He doesn’t know why he hadn’t done that sooner. The knife under his desk…? He wonders as he looks back but turns back the moment after. No, it can stay there. _He_ didn’t know about it. That knife didn’t put scars anywhere he didn’t want. He grabs the nearest cord on the floor, yanking it out of whatever it was plugged into, and uses it to tie the closet door shut.

There’s nothing that can hurt him anymore, but all the dread he’s expertly kept down his entire childhood bubbles to the surface. There’s too much to ignore so, with his knuckles gripped together as tight as possible, fingernails digging painfully into his skin, he slides down the door and falls to the floor. He can’t remember the last time he’s cracked this much. He doesn’t think it’s ever been this much. Muddled things flood his head, and when it passes, the only thing he thinks about is how much he wants to leave.


End file.
